Hey, Italy, why so blue?

When I was in Rome last month, Italians were digesting an article that ran in the New York Times about the “collective funk” into which the country has fallen, purportedly because of political chaos, organized crime, retrograde culture and economic stagnation that is expected to put it behind Spain in the near future.

Many Italians took issue with the notion that the country is suffering from long-term, apparently untreatable clinical depression. The New York Times article was based on a University of Cambridge study, which found that Italians are the least happy of 15 western European nations. Denmark ranked No. 1 in happiness.

So finding out whether Italians are really depressed will be high on my agenda when I move to Rome next month. On the other hand, I would guess that one Italian in a funk can generate as much happiness static as three Danes on cloud 9.

— Susan Spano, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

[Photo: Max Rossi / Reuters]

Permalink | E-mail | Print | Add to My Trips

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 16, 2008 at 9:15 am by Susan Spano and is filed under Weekend Getaways. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.